In Between East and West/Word and Image, Geng Youzhuang, one of China’s leading intellectuals, offers an original and sophisticated analysis of both Western cultural and literary theory and contemporary Chinese thought. In this fascinating exploration of the respective intellectual traditions within China and the West, Geng shows how the dynamics at work between word and image become a parable for understanding the larger relationship between Chinese and Western ideas.
Geng first surveys influential Western thinkers and their ideas, with a special focus on the relations between words and things, signs and meanings, image and language. He next explores the conflicted relationship between religion and literature in the West. Finally, Geng turns his focus to China, discussing the meaning and significance of sinology and the possibilities of treating China as a sign and referent in contemporary Western thinking. Anyone interested in the forces at work within the intermingling of Eastern and Western literature, writing, and the semiotics of culture, will find Between East and West/Word and Image compelling.
AcknowledgmentsIntroductionI1 The Construction of Language and Vision On Roland Barthes' "Les mots et les choses"2 Meditation on Flames and Ashes Jacques Derrida's "Semiotics"3 The End of Poetry and the Impossibility of Witness On Giorgio Agamben's Poetics4 "Philopainting" or "Pictophilosophy"? Gilles Deleuze's Reading of Francis Bacon's PaintingsII5 Augustine's "Self-Portrait"Confessions as a Literary Autobiography6 Aesthetic Theology Theological Aesthetics after von Balthasar7 Miracles and Revolutionary Reversals Terry Eagleton's Theological Turn8 The Rhetoric of Icons From Image to VoiceIII9 Between Reality and Imagination The Phenomenon of Contemporary Chinese Art10 Gesture and ĽécritureThe Chinese "Content" in Contemporary WesternPhilosophy of Art11 Sinological Studies and Literary Imagination A Reflection on Sinology and a Review ofJonathan Stalling's Poetics of Emptiness12 Moving Boundaries How Can Scriptural Reasoning Enterinto the Chinese Context?Conclusion Notes Works Cited Credits Index
GENG Youzhuang is Professor of Comparative Literature in the School of Liberal Arts at Renmin University of China.